Blood Fever
by Murf
Summary: A 2009verse take on the iconic climax and resolution to "Amok Time."


Title: Blood Fever

Fandom: ST2009

Genre: Drama

Characters: Kirk, Spock, T'Pring, McCoy, T'Pau.

Summary: A 2009verse take on the iconic climax and resolution to "Amok Time."

Extended Summary: Spock is in the throes of pon farr, and T'Pring (unluckily a survivor of the destruction of Vulcan) has chosen the kal-if-fee, with Jim as her champion.

He's not sure what's going on, but he could swear it feels familiar.

Spock walks up to a gong and hits it with a silver mallet. The vibration shivers its way into Jim's bones and he knows that something huge is about to go down.

Bells ring from somewhere, and Jim and Bones' eyes are drawn to the source of the sound: The bride's procession. Everyone is dressed in silver, olive green, and a dark, rusty sort of purple, except for an older woman. That woman is carried in on a litter, and she has the bearing of intellectual royalty.

The younger woman at the head of the procession, recognizable as Spock's fiancee (the word feels wrong, even just to think it), T'Pring, walks up to join Spock at the gong. She's beautiful, with tan skin and long, dark hair. There's the same fire in her eyes as the one that Jim's been able to notice in Spock's these past few days. Between them is some mystery, some strange thing that Jim can't name or understand now, but it makes them utterly captivating under the reddish skies of the new Vulcan colony-planet.

Spock moves to strike the gong again, but T'Pring raises a hand, fingers straight and arm unbent, barely touching the gong. She speaks. "I claim the right of kal-if-fee."

Spock tenses, and Jim trades a confused look with Bones; clearly this is unexpected.

"She claims the right of challenge, as is her right," clarifies the older woman, her slanted eyes and wrinkled face completely emotionless. "Spock, T'Pring, step forward."

They obey. The old woman, now recognizable as T'Pau, the most famous Vulcan elder, speaks again. "T'Pring, choose your champion."

T'Pring turns stiffly towards Jim. Their eyes meet for a moment, and she points. "Him."

"No."

Everyone turns toward the source of the strained, gravelly word. It's Spock, his hands clasped and shaking in front of him and his eyes wild. "Not him. I cannot."

T'Pau looks at him and says, her voice hard and stern, "It is said that thy Vulcan blood runs thin. Art thou a Vulcan?"

"My blood...burns...my soul...burns." Spock's losing it; he'll be fully under the influence of pon farr once his control finally cracks. "I will do what...I must...but not...with him." He's grinding out his words now, he's holding on by sheer force of will.

Jim knows that that's just like Spock.

"It is his decision, not thine," T'Pau chastises before she turns back to Jim. She says, "Wilt thou fight thy friend, as T'Pring asks of thou?"

Jim is quiet for a moment, looking past T'Pau and trying to make eye contact with Spock. The half-Vulcan is leaning against a cliff face as someone ties a purple sash around his waist, his face twisted and eyes screwed shut. He resolves to throw the fight, even though part of him knows that Spock could beat him even if he didn't.

He runs a hand along his neck, nervously remembering his and Spock's fight on the bridge six months ago, but he knows what he's going to do.

"Yes."

A strangled sound tears itself from Spock's throat, but T'Pau ignores him, commanding, "Bring forth the lirpa."

Two Vulcans wearing rather ridiculous looking helmets came forward. They each carried a long staff with a crescent shaped blade on one end and a weight on the other, and presented these weapons to Spock and Jim.

The Vulcan wedding party steps back from the arena. Bones puts a hand on Jim's shoulder as he moves to join them, saying, "Be careful."

"Sound medical advice if ever I heard it," Jim retorts, trying to find that cocky bravado he wears so well.

Spock walks over to face Jim, eyes glazed and animal-like. Jim raises his eyebrows and hefts the heavy lirpa. T'Pau speaks up from her chair. "If both survive the lirpa, we shall present the ahn-woon."

"What do ya mean, 'if both survive'?" Bones asks, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"This combat, Doctor, is to the death."

Jim blinks as a freezing chill of fear and, more importantly, recognition, works its way down his spine.

This is familiar because he's done it before. That other him, the one that Spock Prime knew. He must've known, from that mind-meld on Delta Vega. He remembers, sort of, the fight, and his breath hitches.

He wonders how he survived it then.

The ceremonial bells are shaken again, and the fight begins. Spock immediately swings the lirpa blade-first, and Jim ducks, twisting sideways and dropping, catlike, to Spock's feet. He tries to trip the Vulcan, but aborts the attempt when the weighted end of the lirpa hits the ground millimeters from his head.

So, instead, he rolls backward over his own lirpa and jumps to his feet. Spock swings the lirpa again, and now they're so close to the gong that the weighted end shatters it like porcelain.

One of the shards slices into Spock's shoulder, but the hybrid's too far gone to notice or care. The shard distracts Jim, though, long enough for Spock to make a thin cut horizontal on Jim's chest, tearing his shirt.

The wound is mostly superficial, but it stings like hell. Disregarding it, Jim blocks Spock's next half-mad blow, pressing back with the staff of the lirpa against Spock's enormous strength.

He's forced backward a step, but at least they're headed away from the bed of burning coals behind the remnants of the gong. Jim drops like a rock again, this time sliding beneath Spock's wide legged stance and coming up behind him. When Spock whips around to strike again, Jim's ready and slams the weighted end of his lirpa into the middle of Spock's, snapping it in two.

Spock throws the pieces aside and lunges for Jim's lirpa. They struggle with the thing for a few moments before Jim throws both feet up and braces them against the lirpa. He holds on tight to the lirpa with his hands and pushes off, extending his legs as fast as he can.

The lirpa breaks, splintering where his feet had been, and his feet hit Spock hard in the chest.

They both fall, hitting the ground hard. Jim's breath is short, and he has to struggle to his feet as Spock comes toward him again.

"Kroykah!" The guttural word stops Spock dead in his tracks. It's T'Pau.

"Bring forth the ahn-woon."

Those same two Vulcans step forward again, this time bearing long strips of something like leather. Each strip has a pointed weight on one end.

As the ahn-woons are distributed, McCoy speaks up. "Wait a second!"

T'Pau looks at McCoy.

Apparently considering that permission enough, he continues, "This isn't a fair fight. Jim's not used to this thin air, he's not a goddamn Vulcan!" He rummages around in his medical kit and pulls out a hypospray. "This is a tri-ox compound; it'll alleviate the stress on his lungs. Level the playing field a little."

"It is permissible, given the physical inferiority of human beings. Proceed."

Grumbling something about green-blooded, arrogant hobgoblins, Bones rushes over to Jim and stabs him with the hypo. Jim yelps.

"Dammit, Bones! Is there any way to make that hurt less?"

"No," Bones growls before getting the hell out of the way.

They start up again, this time with Jim whipping the ahn-woon around Spock's ankles, tripping him. He follows the blow by lurching over and falling over on top of Spock, wondering when Bones' tri-ox compound is going to take effect, because he kind of needs it now.

Spock's managing to untangle his legs, and he's bucking hard enough that Jim isn't sure how long he can hold him down.

It's not long at all before Jim is tossed backward. He's feeling very, very tired.

More tired than he should be, even from the fight.

Spock wraps the ahn-woon around Jim's throat and pulls it tight, crushing the air (whatever is left) out of his throat. He gasps, his hands flying to his throat. It's too much like the incident on the bridge, and, this time, there's no way out, because Spock can't reason anymore, and nobody's going to stop him. Jim can't breathe, can barely see straight, but he looks up, trying to find Spock's eyes.

As the world fizzles out around him, all he notices is the wild, almost hurting look in Spock's dark eyes.

He wakes up in sickbay, Nurse Chapel hovering over him. He's understandably surprised.

"Why the hell am I not dead?"

Chapel smiles. "Dr. McCoy gave you a neuroparalyzer. It made you look like you were dead, Captain, so Mr. Spock could win that fight. What was it about, anyway?"

"Not my place to really talk about it. Where's McCoy?" He sits up, feeling not half as tired as he had right before he blacked out. He notices abruptly that he is still in his torn shirt and asks, "And can I get out of here and change my shirt?"

"I'll go see the Doctor about that, sir." Chapel leaves quickly.

Soon after, he hears voices from the main lobby of sickbay. He moves closer to the door between the rooms, to listen.

"--Doctor, please." Spock is talking. "There is no excuse for my crime; I cannot offer any defense. Furthermore, I will resign--"

Jim can see Spock now, and Spock's facing away from him. Bones and Chapel are standing facing him, and Chapel seems to be having a little difficulty keeping a straight face. So, feeling just a little mischievous, Jim sneaks up until he's right behind Spock.

Spock finishes saying that he's handing command off to Scotty, and Jim says, "Maybe there's someone you should ask about that, Spock?"

He brushes past his first officer, smirking.

"Captain?" The word is all the warning he gets before he's spun around and finds himself face-to-face with a confused, undeniably relieved demi-Vulcan.

"Captain?" The second time Spock says it, he appends, "Jim?"

Jim's smirk turns itself into a real smile.

A moment passes, before both of them are distracted by someone clearing their throat.

Spock looks past Jim at Chapel and Bones, and he sobers, removing his hands from Jim's shoulders and straightening his shirt. "I am...glad to see you, Captain. How is it you survived?"

"Blame Bones. He shot me with a neuroparalyzer, not a tri-ox compound." Jim can't stop grinning.

"I...see."

"Nurse," Bones interjects, "Go see if you can find our Captain a new shirt, please?"

Chapel nods and leaves. Once she's gone, Bones turns to Spock and asks, "What happened? Your fiancee; the wedding? Shouldn't you still be down there?"

An odd look passes over Spock's face, but he says, "Ah, yes. It...must've been the combat. When I believed that the Captain was dead, I found I had lost all desire for T'Pring. The pon farr has dissipated."

"But you can't tell me that, when you saw that Jim was alive, you weren't about to give us an emotional scene that would've brought the house down!"

Spock comes back at him immediately with, "It was only my...quite logical...relief to see that Starfleet had not lost the highly proficient Captain."

Still smiling widely, Jim nods and says, "Of course, Spock. Completely logical."

Spock and Jim head out of sickbay, but not before Bones has the chance to say, "In a pig's eye!"

Jim laughs, and, for the moment, everything's all right.

~end~

Word Count: 1,898

Author's Note: I had fun with this, mainly because it was a chance to play around in the lovely 2009-verse sandbox for a bit. And I love to hate T'Pring, too.


End file.
